| The Lewis and Clark Geosystem is a historical geospatial portal of the Lewis and Clark Trail. The Geosystem presents an interdisciplinary exploration of various geospatial themes through the utilization of advanced, geospatial Web services. The interconnected Web services are based upon an expansive and distributed array of geodatabases (geospatial databases). These geodatabases emphasize local, regional, and continental scale vector and raster data layers. The Web services are presented in specific, user-defined web applications focusing upon discrete portions of the Lewis and Clark Trail environment. The applications are project-based and are designed to explicate a variety of fundamental geographical themes related to Lewis and Clark geography. As a geographic communication system (GCS), the Geosystem demonstrates the value of server-based GIS, the consumption and production of Web services across a range of client-based applications, and the manifestation of application interoperability based upon Arc-Extensible Markup Language (ArcXML).; As a channel of the US Department of the Interior Geospatial One Stop (GOS) portal, the Geosystem is a fully compliant Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) metadata service(s), and has been recognized as a core national asset for furthering the science of Lewis and Clark scholarship. The science emphasizes the geospatial technologies involved in the architecture as well as the geospatial information developed and incorporated into the distributed geodatabase metaframework.; As an interdisciplinary research project, the Geosystem combines the primary disciplines of geospatial IT, history, ecology, and geography, and reflects an unprecedented expression of Lewis and Clark scholarship. The Geosystem as designed provides an interconnected geospatial matrix for exploring multiple historical geographical themes of relevance to the historiography of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The Geosystem anticipates next-generation advances in ontological Web services, immersive geospatial experience, and distributed connectivity for multi-user experience. |
